Eavesdropping
by TheQueenofBooks1000
Summary: Listening to what other people are saying is morally wrong if it's none of your business. But if you happen to overhear a passionate soliloquy about someone's love for you, it technically IS your business, right? So it's not wrong if you continue to eavesdrop, especially since it can help you sort out your messy feelings for your bully. Right?


**First chapter of this weird story I'm doing! I hope you guys enjoy...whatever the hell this is. It was written at exactly 2:53 AM. **

**Now I really need to sleep. I hope you guys like this stor—zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...**

**DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN HEY ARNOLD.**

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><p>For a minute, all he could see were stars.<p>

He lay on the ground, blinking rapidly and trying to regain his bearings. The stars clouding his vision sparkled brightly for a while longer, and then they parted to reveal a blond-haired, blue-eyed angel—an angel with a unibrow and a scowl that could send burly convicts running for their mommies.

For a minute, she just gazed at him with her deep blue eyes. He couldn't help but notice that strands of her long blond hair escaped the confines of her pigtails and were currently cascading down the sides of her face, like a golden frame or something. Her scowl faltered by a fraction of a degree, and he raised his hand to brush the wayward strands away from her face.

_That _snapped her back to reality. She gasped a bit and backed away from him.

"Watch it, Football Head!" she spat, yanking him by his collar to get him to sit up. She shot him another glare and started collecting her fallen items from the moldy cafeteria floor.

For a minute, all he could do was look at her in confusion, wondering what the heck she was doing and why there was no heavenly choir present to commemorate the descent of such a magnificent creature.

He shook his head vigorously and offered her a smile. "Sorry, Helga," he said, a bit dreamily.

"Yeah, yeah. Help me out here, will ya?" was her annoyed response. "Criminy!"

Still grinning from ear to ear, he compiled all the homework papers and notebooks. His grin widened even more when he noted her loopy handwriting, in rich purple ink, praising the kindness of a certain 'boy with hair eternally touched by Midas.'

"Hey, give me that!" Helga growled, ripping the paper from his grasp. "Nice of you to help, Hair Boy," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, before storming off.

Gerald immediately rushed to his best friend's aid, helping him to his feet. "Hey, man. Sorry you got caught in the Hurricane Helga. You okay?"

Arnold flashed him a toothy smile. "Never better, Gerald. Uh, Iisten, I just gotta go and take care of something."

Gerald looked at him curiously before shrugging. "Okay, Arnold."

The two boys did their secret handshake and walked off to their separate ways. Gerald sat down and flashed Phoebe Heyerdahl his trademark 'lady-killer' smile. "Hey, Pheebs, what's up?"

The little dark-haired teenager giggled, and awarded his efforts with a shy smile. "Nothing much, Gerald. Want some of my tapioca pudding? I got the last."

The tall-haired boy raised his spoon. "Sure thing, baby," he responded with a wink, which brought about a fresh bout of giggles.

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><p>Meanwhile, Arnold was hiding behind a wall. He cautiously looked around him, before finally fixing his gaze at Helga G. Pataki, who was haphazardly shoving her things in her locker while muttering obscenities under her breath. She slammed her locker door shut, hard enough to make the neighboring lockers rattle a bit. Crossing her arms, she glared at nothing in particular.<p>

Arnold leaned forward. _Here it goes..._

"Arnold. What a sap! What a pea-brained goody-two-shoes, always acting like he's some sort of butt-saving messiah, going around butting into people's lives. How I hate him."

The words stung a little; it always did, but Arnold knew that she didn't really mean it. What she _did_ mean was...

The blonde closed her eyes. "And yet..." Suddenly, they shot open again, and they darted around the halls nervously. Arnold ducked behind a garbage can just in time.

A loud, lovesick sigh escaped her lips, and she reached into her jeans pocket, pulling out a golden locket with the likeness of her beloved smiling hazily at her. "...how I love him! His genuine kindness, making my heart sing the sweetest of songs! That half-lidded gaze, reflecting the depths of the jungle, along with his honest mind, uncorrupted by the selfishness of this cruel, cruel world! Oh, _Arnold..."_

The teenage boy himself had to stifle a sigh behind his sweater sleeve.

Helga continued, blissfully aware of his presence. "If only I could tell you, my love. If only I could let the dam burst and overwhelm you with all my adoration for you! Alas, almost two decades has passed, and still I cannot..." She looked at her locket so mournfully that Arnold was fighting off every impulse to hug her.

A loud wheezing sound brushed uncomfortably close to Helga's ear. She squared her shoulders and delivered a punch on Brainy's nose, never breaking eye contact with her locket. Arnold winced sympathetically on Brainy's behalf, though he couldn't help but admire Helga's strength...

The bell rang, completely pulling her out of her reverie. She planted a kiss on beloved's picture, slipped it back in her pocket, and resumed her scowling. She pushed past a trio of glassy-eyed freshmen, snarling, "Out of my way, if you know what's good for you, punks!"

Arnold waited for her to reach him, before stepping out of the shadows. "Hey, Helga."

"Argghh!" She looked at him with wide eyes. "Arnold! Uh...ahh...leave me alone Football Head!" She gave him a rather weak shove, before trudging towards her classroom.

The football-headed teen smiled, a mixture of amusement and love.

Yeah. _Love._

He, Arnold Shortman, was in love with the fist-waving, pink bow-wearing, one-eyebrowed tormentor of a girl, Helga Geraldine Pataki.

Yeah, that's right. He was one of the few people on this planet Earth who actually knew her middle name.

Not that she ever told him or anything. But still, it made him feel special. _How _he found out doesn't really matter, anyway.

He finally found out about his muddled-up feelings during the summer of fifth grade and, after accidentally witnessing one of her melodramatic soliloquies, crashing into Brainy and ending up in the Dumpster, and obsessing over the issue for months, he finally decided that he actually _loved her._

He didn't just like her, or even _like her _like her. He passionately, head-over-heels, without a doubt, crazy in love with her._  
><em>

And it only took seven years of bullying on her side and complete and total denseness on his to realize that!

But before he could tell her, his family received a letter from Arnold's parents from San Lorenzo, and the minute the letter reached Grandpa's hands, he jumped as high as his rickety-old bones could carry him and began to pack everything, with Grandma joyously bursting into country songs every five minutes. They went to San Lorenzo a few hours after they got the letter, managing to get three economy class tickets by threatening, bribing, and pleading calls at three in the morning.

Arnold was ecstatic of course, and the minute he met his parents for the first time since he was still in diapers, he decided to stay with them.

It had been a good six years of helping and making friends with the natives, travelling different parts of the world to find various antidotes and herbs, and getting acquainted with Miles and Stella, who were seriously freaking awesome parents. Of course, he wrote to all his friends explaining his hasty departure, and every single one of them, especially Gerald, replied (some even sending little gifts). All except one.

Man, that hurt so bad.

Then again, he didn't really say much to her in his letter, either. It was basically _Hi Helga San Lorenzo is awesome and I really miss you and the gang I hope you're doing well 'kay thanks see ya someday._

He wanted so badly to tell her, but he thought it would be better to tell her in person. He smiled wistfully, remembering the first time he saw her in six years. It was in a drug store._  
><em>

Thankfully, she didn't see him, or else it would have been REALLY awkward, since at the moment, he was shopping for his grandparents, whose shopping list consisted of nasty stuff like 'hemorrhoid cream,' 'anti-rash powder,' and 'adult diapers.'

She was standing there, laughing openly with Phoebe Heyerdahl and Lila Sawyer, much to his surprise. She was clearly making sarcastic jabs about the people around them, since they were receiving a lot of dirty looks. She was still essentially the same: silky blond hair in pigtails, a single dash of hair above her mischievous blue eyes, and guffawing laugh which he seriously found adorable.

And that was when he found out that yep, he still got it bad for her.

There was nothing left to do but snag five bottles of 'bowel movement energy drink' and get the heck out of there.

And then one day, he hid inside Mrs. Vitello's flower cart, joined two minutes later by Brainy, who was surprised enough to get into a wheezing frenzy. Thankfully, he managed to get it under control the minute Helga appeared. She both lamented and celebrated Arnold's return, finally ending her passionate love fest (which, in all honesty, made him blush a little) by declaring that she was still in love with him.

And then Brainy popped out of the cart and started breathing over her neck.

Yup, he'll never forget that day, how his heart soared when Helga declared her undying love for him, how her beautiful blue eyes shone with happiness, how she spoke tenderly to her locket, which, if he closed his eyes, could imagine that she was saying those wonderful things to him, how she skipped merrily back home...

...oh, yeah, and how Mrs. Vitello chased them out of there with a shovel, how he practically had to carry an unconscious Brainy bridal style into a dark and nearly abandoned alley to get away from the enraged florist, how he tripped over a bottle and twisted his ankle, laying on the sidewalk in complete agony while waiting for Brainy to gain consciousness (which took about two hours) to help _him _up this time, only for the bespectacled teen to trip over the same bottle and how the two of them had to wait for the fire department to get there since nobody could hear their cries (or in Brainy's case, wheezes) of pain in that dark alley...

It was all worth it for _his _Helga.

Arnold sighed and walked over to Brainy, who was still passed out near a locker that happens to be Wolfgang's, and dragged him to the nurses' office, already hatching a plan.

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><p>"SAY WHAT?"<p>

Arnold held the phone a foot away from his ear, wincing. When Gerald didn't say anything else, he calmly restated, "Yes, Gerald. I'm in love with Helga."

"Helga? _Helga?! _As in, Helga _G._ Pataki?!"_  
><em>

The blond boy sighed. "Yup."

"Are you sure," Gerald rasped, "that it's the same HELGA we're talking about here? Unibrow, blond hair in pigtails, freakishly tall—"

"Yeah, that's Helga, all right," Arnold replied dully. He tapped his fingers on his desk. "So, can you help me with it?" _It _being Arnold's master plan to win Helga's heart—not that he didn't completely have it already, but in order for them to become an official couple.

They were both quiet for a minute. Arnold could hear Gerald breathing in such a way that might give Brainy a run for his money. "Man," Gerald mumbled, "I think the heat from the jungle scrambled your brain." Pause. "Fine. How do I help?"

"Thanks, Gerald!" Arnold cried, brightening immediately. "I guess...um..."

"There's a dance coming up," Gerald said flatly. "Saturday. Eight PM until ten."

"Next Saturday?" Arnold repeated, realizing that it was already Thursday. Oh, no! I've gotta prepare. Thanks, Gerald, you're a pal!"

"Uh...you, too, buddy," Gerald said to the dial tone. He shook his head and placed the receiver down. "Mmm-hmm-mmm. Boy's gone off the deep end. Maybe living with wild animals actually made him _like _them." He chuckled weakly, and collapsed on his bed.

Staring at the ceiling, he exclaimed incredulously, "But seriously, though...Helga G. Pataki?"

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><p><strong>This is the unedited version of chapter one! Next chapter will feature Rhonda, Lila, Harold, Curly, and all your favorite characters. Please review!<strong>


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